Spooky season is upon us and bless us all we are getting some new original (kinda) horror movies to enjoy this season. Smile is a new horror thriller from director Parker Finn, and stars Sosie Bacon, Jessie Usher, Kyle Gallner Kall Penn, & Robin Weigert. After witnessing a bizarre and horrificly gruseome suicide occur in front of her, Dr Rose Cotter ( Sosie Bacon), begins seeing, and hearing a variety of distrubing images and sounds,all revolving around different individuals smiling back at her. With the help of her ex boyfriend Joel (Kyle Gallner), Rose discovers a pattern of simillar events that occured earlier (even back from her childhood), related to the suicide she witnessed. Battling her own sanity and demons, Rose goes on a race against the clock to find the culprit of these events and save herself and other’s from a simillar fate. Are you going to be smiling after watching this movie? We’ll lets get into it.

First and foremost, this movie is the Sosie Bacon show. She is in dam near every shot of this movie, and dominates throughout. The movie thrives off of the tension and restlessness that Rose expericnes throughout which is conveyed amazingly throght Sosise’s body language throughout. The rest of the cast is fine and play their roles well, but she is the star of this movie, and I imagine we will be seeing her a lot more after this.

Now to the actual quality of the movie. Yes it is very good. Its filled with tension that feels breathable, and many of the scares (with the exception of a few, the previews spoiled), are unpredictable and terrifying. I am usually not a fan of horror movies that assualt you with pop up scares, but smile wracks them up and exceutes them amazingly well. On top of effective pop up scares, there are several images in this movie that are extremely disturbing (an image at the end of this movie really stuck with me for hours after it was over). A common fear that we all have that the movie uses to its advantge is when you are sleeping at night, and you are in a daark room and you think you see something in the distance and keep squinting to try to see what it is. This happens quite a few times throughout the runtime and is chilling.The biggest thing that this movie uses to its advantage is the tension. We are with Rose tightly trying to figure out what is going on and they make you sweat and wait for it, all the way to the final 20 minutes. Smile also boasts one of the better music scores in a horror movie conducted by Cristobal Tapia de veer.

Their were only a few negatives of this movie that I had and one other I think some people may have with it. The movie has pockets of humor thoroughout, despite a fairly serious tone thoruhgout. The films opening suicide is followed by jokes by cops, and it just doesnt seem like something that blends well with the tone, and other scenes like this occur throuhgout. Smile’s concept is not the most original ever done being we have had several horror movies done around smiling charatcers, and films about charactcers witnessing an event and than jumping in countdown for their lives (The Ring comes to mind). This movie is also pretty long compared to a lot of horror movies, and with all the jump sacres and tension this might not sit well many viewers. Still through all this Smile is a tense, thrilling, and very scray time the movie. And judging by recent news of the films financial success, I will not be surpised if we have sequels/spinoffs for the future. Parker Finn has my blessing. 8/10.